But morning isn't for months!
by juggernaut715
Summary: AU
1. Chapter 1

The ice went on forever, fading from the white visible in the torchlight to meld with the dark horizon. There was no sun - it was winter, and twelve year old Sokka knew it would be months at least before sunshine beamed down on their village once again. He sighed as his stomach grumbled.

"Katara!" He shouted, turning to aim his voice back into the tent he and his sister shared. She poked her head out.

"What?"

"Do we have any meat?"

"Sokka, you ate all of your rations yesterday. You can't have mine, because they're mine. So, it's not that _we_ don't have meat - it's just _you."_

Sokka grumbled, turning to look back over the ice.

"I'm going to go catch something to eat."

"OK, well, don't die." Katara said, kindly, and her head disappeared.

"Yeah, thanks." Sokka whispered back. He picked up a torch from the fire burning in the middle of the village and walked out across the ice, alone. It was times like these he wished his father hadn't left to fight the Fire Nation. Times like these he wished his mother hadn't been _killed_ by the Fire Nation, thereby catalyzing his father's departure.

But most of all, it was times like these that he envied his sister. She didn't have a handle on what she could do yet, but he remembered Mom being alive more than she did - he had two years more in that category. He had seen Mom pull a whole bearseal out of the water, and slice it's head off with a razor thin whip of water. He could also remember when he broke his ankle slipping on the ice, and how she had healed it - the way the water chilled, numbed, and repaired while guided by her hands.

He reached the water. It was a black pool of nothing - just small ripples of water as the waves splashed against the shore of ice. He kneeled and held a hand out to the water, willing it to do something - anything - to prove that he was a bender, too. In reply a large tentacle exploded out of the water and wrapped around him, too tight to let him pull air into his lungs to scream for help. Then, it yanked him off the ice, and into the water.

Down, down, down he went. The frigid water soaked into him, chilling him to his bones and organs. He could not see anything. All he could do was hold his breath - there! In the distance, he saw a light. The tentacle became illuminated by it as he was pulled closer and closer, and then the massive beast of which the tentacle was a part of was revealed. It's eyes were darker than black, and it simply stared back at him as they neared closer and closer to the light.

 _Worry not._ A voice whispered into his mind. _By morning, you will return to the surface._


	2. Chapter 2

Zuko stared down at the seal on his hand, ignoring the way his fingers shook. The intricate symbol was ink, yes, but it was no ordinary tattoo. He watched as the black lines slackened and tensed, moving like a living and breathing thing. They extended down to his wrist and disappeared into his sleeve, odd and seemingly random shapes making no recognizable pattern. If he were to remove his clothing, he would see the lines covering his entire body - and if he removed the makeup that coated his face he would see them there too.

 _I can still feel it,_ he thought. _It's still bubbling, right below the surface of my skin._

The seals had been done by the Fire Sages, on the request of his father, who had been getting tired of entire wings of his palace being destroyed when his eldest son became angry. But it was not just anger that drove him into the "fits," as his sister called them - he knew something was wrong with him, something inside his head.

He looked to his left hand now, where his middle finger had begun twitching. The fingers shaking on the right hand meant he would have an episode within the hour - the twitching meant it was about to start. His vision turned red, and the drums that were a constant background noise in his head became deafeningly loud. He stood up from his chair, hands clenched and spittle flying out from between the cracks in his teeth. But this time, he did not destroy buildings. Instead, he ransacked the room until he got too tired to break anything more, laying in a puddle on the floor.

"No fires, not even a spark. It worked, then?" A voice asked from the doorway. Panting, Zuko looked over, and a shadow of a smile formed on his lips when he saw who it was.

"Yeah. Mom wanted you to check in on me, huh?"

"Yep. She wanted to know if having all those old geezers in the palace for a week was worth it."

"Is that really what she said?"

"No, she wanted to know why you weren't at dinner yet,but I could tell it's what she _meant."_

Both of the boys laughed, the fact that Zuko had just experienced another of his rages forgotten. His brother, Korok, was a year younger than him and a year older than Azula. He found him pleasing to be around - his ever-present cheerfulness helped distract him from the ever-present pounding of the drums, and he felt...calmer, when his brother was nearby. He never had the same feeling with Azula, or his father - but his mother had a similar effect as well. That was why as Korok exited the room he quickly jumped to his feet and followed to stay close, and they made their way to the royal dining hall together side by side.

Their sister was already there when they entered, as were the rest of the royal family. She simply gave them a courteous nod and then turned back to her meal. Their father sat at the head of the table, listening to something a servant was whispering in his ear and nodding to whatever it was. Ursa, to the right of her husband, rose when she saw them and walked over

"There you are." She trapped Zuko in an embrace, which he returned, blushing as he heard Korok snickering behind him. "How are you feeling?"

"Good." Zuko said, meaning it, but his mother frowned, her motherly intuition giving her insight.

"Did you have another episode today? Is that why you didn't come down to dinner on time?"

"Y-Yeah. But the seal worked."

"No explosions." Korok supplied. "No flames, either."

"Oh, Zuko." Ursa sighed, resting a hand on his shoulder. "You know I wish it didn't have to be this way. I can't imagine what it feels like to be unable to..."

"It's OK, Mom." He said, though he had found that the last two days without bending had been less than pleasant. He shrugged, and forced himself to smile - he didn't want her to worry. She returned the expression with one of her own before pinching his cheek and going back to her seat.

"Hey, Azula. How are you doing?" Korok asked, as he sat down next to her and started piling food into his plate.

"Fine, thank you." she replied, watching as his stack reached a critical height. "You know, you could always just get seconds."

"Hey, I'm gonna eat it all. Not like I'm wasting food."

"True." She acknowledged. She looked past him to settle her gaze on Zuko, who met her eyes blankly. "Another episode?"

"We already went over it with Mom." he said in turn, picking at the food on his plate. "It...it wasn't a bad one, today."

"Your last one was over a week ago, but it used to be weeks. Plural." She continued. "I don't know about you, but there's a correlation there -"

"Azula." Ursa cut in, tone sharp. "Don't be a bully. What have I told you, again and again?"

"...treat others how you wish to be treated, and think about what you're saying." Azula mumbled, looking down. She looked to Zuko and mouthed "Sorry." He just nodded, but the pounding of the drums had filled his ears. He blinked when he felt a hand on his arm -

"Hey. You OK?" Korok asked, smiling at him with concern brimming in his eyes.

"Yeah." Zuko replied, glancing at his right hand, which was under the table and out of sight.

His fingers were shaking.

"I'm fine."


	3. Chapter 3

As the light became brighter and brighter Sokka found his vision starting to blacken at the edges, from both lack of oxygen and an increase in pressure. His skull felt like it was squeezing his brain, and it probably was. The tentacle around his torso had been inescapable, but now it was asphyxiating.

It came as a great relief when the many tentacled beast shoved him into the light and he could breathe again.

Air, salty and smelling like rotten fish air, how grateful he was to have it in his lungs. Sokka groaned as he tugged himself to his feet, having to squint his eyes to see because of how bright the room was. The walls were shiny, coated with a viscous see-through liquid - and so was he, now that he thought about it. The stuff was caked on like a third coat, and...warm.

"Ew." He stated, dragging a hand across his forehead to pull off some of the gunk. His head was still pounding, as were his ribs - his bones felt like they would break any second - and he felt incredibly tired all of a sudden. Faintly, he heard singing, and he blinked as a woman four times his size walked into the room, wielding four swords, for each of her four arms. Oh, and walking was the wrong adjective, since she had no _fucking legs._

He fell forward on his face, blissful sleep taking him.


	4. Chapter 4

Zuko hated the sensation of being examined - it had happened enough over the years, with new doctors from far and wide attempting to cure or treat his…malfunction. They had tried everything - nothing was too outlandish. Medicines, sedatives even, would burn up in his fiery metabolism in mere minutes. Bloodletting was pointless and a waste of time. Therapy? Perhaps it had an effect, but it was impossible to tell how much of one it had since he crippled the poor woman when she tried to induce an episode in order to try and calm him down from it. Father had been required to excuse himself from a meeting with his Generals to save her life, and had been quite displeased. All of the failed solutions started with an examination, though, and it was no different now.

The man, Sowyle, one of the Fire Sages, didn't seem to care about Zuko's discomfort as he traced the ink up and down the boy's body with his gnarled fingers.

"There are no errors." He reaffirmed, as he had the day before. Father, in the shadows of the room, exhaled smoke.

"Then why?"

"With the seals functioning as they should I see no…" the man trailed off, looking away. He tilted his head. "Perhaps…"

"What?" Zuko pried, impatient.

"With no seals the episodes were every three weeks at worst, but typically had a lull of a month or more between each one. Now they are almost daily." The man crossed his arms. "It may be that since less energy is expended in each, there is a buildup occurring, and thus the episodes compensate for scale with frequency." He glanced back and met the fiery eyes of the man who ruled the nation. "If that is the case, then there are very limited choices."

The eyes closed, and Sowyle remained silent. Zuko fidgeted, restless.

"Leave us." The Firelord spoke, and the elder left the room immediately. The door shut behind him with a gentle click. Those fiery eyes opened and the man stepped forward into the lights, revealing his pale and hard face - his robes were such a deep red that they melted into the shadows, making it look like his head was...floating.

"Father." Zuko murmured, bowing his head slightly.

"When the engineers of our nation first built the great steamboats that are now a staple of our industry they were dealt a difficult hand. Several companies used a particular form of engine developed by a man named Ree Fordu, who made a mistake in one of his calculations. The result was a defect that caused the ships with his engines to go up in flames." The man tilted his head slightly, raising one eyebrow.

Zuko swallowed thickly. That sounded familiar.

"The result was a choice. Did Fordu pay to the expensive costs to recall the engines, fix the problem and then redistribute? Or did he let the boats burn, and pay for the consequential but minimally costly funerals of the deceased? Which should he have done?"

It took a moment, but Zuko realized he was actually being asked a question.

"He...should have recalled the engines."

The man did not nod, or shake his head, but merely straightened his neck.

"He let them burn. Thousands of people died, but his company did well in the aftermath. Our standard model of steamboat today is based on his earliest prototype." He smirked slightly at the gobsmacked expression on Zuko's face. "This was during a time that there were no laws in place preventing such choices from occurring - safety laws, workplace laws, insurance laws, _ethical_ laws. We have them now. If such a thing happened tomorrow there would be no question in the matter - the recall would begin immediately, to preserve as many lives and prevent as much suffering as possible. Your _defect_ ," he spat, making Zuko flinch, "now leaves me with a similar choice. During the first years of your fits we had to develop procedures to deal with them - we would have to quarantine whatever room you were in until you calmed down. I couldn't let you in half the palace because of all the priceless artifacts that might have been destroyed, depending on which room you decided to break down in."

"I don't _decide -"_

"When you got old enough that you started breaking down walls," he continued, steamrolling over Zuko's protests, "we had to write out evacuation protocols for the servants and guards. By the time you started destroying wings of the palace, regardless of what was in them or if there were people there or not, we had protocols ready for distribution to evacuate the whole city. People were worried, constantly, that you might go on a rampage in the streets. And you did, no more than a month and a half ago. The merchant's district will never be the same. I tolerated your madness up until this point, regardless of the property damage paid for by the Royal Treasury, out of respect for your mother's wishes, but after that mayhem I had enough. Thirty people died, and hundreds were injured. Now, I don't have much of a choice, do I? Fordu made his decision and let people burn, but I don't have the luxury of letting my son torch the Caldera City to ground."

He stepped forward and leaned down until he and Zuko were eye to eye. His breath was hot, and smelled like charred meat.

"I can't afford you being unsealed, regardless of the fact that a single day of sanity is now a rare occurrence for you. I also can't afford to send you away, no matter how much I want to. But I also cannot abide you doing nothing but wait for your next fit. At least before you were attending classes with a tutor, but now you do nothing."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in." The Firelord said, and the door opened. The man that walked in had red hair and golden eyes - marking him as at least lower royalty. He carried himself like a warrior, stepping lightly but with purpose towards them before inclining his head.

"Greetings, my Lords."

"This is Xin." The Firelord stated, glancing to Zuko. "He will be your minder, your watcher, and your teacher. He will fill your idle time, the little of it you have, and protect the people around you from you."

Xin smiled at Zuko, but it didn't reach his eyes. Meanwhile, the boy's fingers were shaking at his thighs.


End file.
